Up Close & Personal

These five short documentaries examine the lives of some amazing people, in beautiful, intimate, and inventive ways. You’ll get to know them all, Up Close & Personal.

Set against the backdrop of the Trump presidency, Rhys Ernst’s visually stunning, intimate, and empowering short doc Umbrella chronicles the stories of four transgender individuals united in their passion to create change. Set in Harlem, Shape Up: Gay in the Black Barbershop sheds light on the vital role barbershops play within the black community while examining the often-complicated relationship that black gay men have with these spaces. ID#5: winemaker, musician, farmer is an intimate confession of a farmer woman who really doesn’t like sharing her story. In the town of Juchitán de Zaragoza, the local Zapotec people have made room for a third gender category, individuals who were assigned male at birth but live their lives as women in a space outside the gender binary—they are Muxes. Wes Hurley and Nathan Miller’s Little Potato (a Jury Prize winner for Best Short Doc at SXSW) is a visually fascinating autobiographical short about a gay boy growing up in the Soviet Union, his gutsy mail-order-bride mom, and their dream of escaping to America.

— KEVIN SCHAUB

FILMS IN THIS PROGRAM

Umbrella

DIRECTOR Rhys Ernst | 2017 | USA | 15m Umbrella tells the story of four transgender individuals across the country; they are united in their passion to create change and fighting for trans rights and representation amidst a rapidly challenging and changing landscape.

Shape Up: Gay in the Black Barbershop

DIRECTOR Derrick L. Middleton | 2015 | USA | 29m Set in Harlem, this film sheds light on the vital role barbershops play within the black community while examining the often-complicated relationship that black gay men have with these spaces.

ID#5: winemaker, musician, farmer

Muxes

DIRECTOR Ivan Olita | 2016 | USA | 10m | In Spanish with English subtitlesIn the indigenous communities around the town of Juchitán de Zaragoza, in southern Oaxaca, Mexico, the world is not divided simply according to the gender binary. The local Zapotec people have made room for a third category, muxes, individuals who were assigned male at birth but live their lives as women and are widely accepted and celebrated.

Little Potato

DIRECTORS Wes “Potato” Hurley, Nathan Miller | 2016 | USA | 14m This visually fascinating autobiographical short (a Jury Prize winner for Best Short Doc at SXSW) is about a gay boy growing up in the Soviet Union, his gutsy mail-order-bride mom, and their dream of escaping to America.